mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

1. While cool that Brian was quoted and MgoBlog got a shout-out I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what the lead paragraph (general fan malaise) had to do with the balance of the article (shifting population trends). It seemed to me like the author had a good quote from Brian he went with even though it didnt really fit in with the balance of what he was writing about.

2. Which ad did you watch to "unlock" the article? I went with Graceland cause I thought there might be some hot chicks in it and other than a few quick cuts it was pretty disapointing. And no, I did not put it on my calendar to make sure I watched it as they suggested I do.

I'm not normally one of the "well, the leaders know better," but in all honesty, I really have started to move toward that view regarding Maryland and Rutgers. Big Ten fans largely hate the additions, but I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the new additions.

First, as much as we may joke, Maryland and Rutgers are different schools. Everybody wants to say that both athletic departments are a wreck and while that is true financially, Maryland actually has a decent amount to add to the conference. For one, their football team has dealt with a boatload of injuries recently and still managed 7-6 this year. Frankly, I would not be surprised if they were better than your average Big Ten team this year. Plus, their basketball program has won a national title since 2000, which nobody in the Big Ten has done and is recruiting at a superb level. Big Ten basketball is already top notch, but the DC recruiting base alone is worth a ton in that sport.

The second thing that I think never really gets flushed out is the financial gain from these additions. Everyone knows these moves were for money (primarily a cable deal), but we're talking about millions upon millions. Maryland and Rutgers are not in great shape financially, but most believe that will be over within a few years. Every team in the conference should make a ton and should make even more long-term with so many big population areas added.

I can't say I'm jumping out of my seat about Maryland and Rutgers joining, but I think when you get over the whole "We're playing a team that borders the Atlantic?!," these moves really do make a lot of sense.

I agree with you in that, as the article states, the B1G is projecting about $45M PER SCHOOL from the media rights deals in 2017/2018. The B1G is already #1 in that and it's in the $25M range today. I also think that Maryland might be bettter than most think at football, and should be good at hoops. Rutgers less so, although Draftageddon has me worried about what their DL does to our OL.

I think that what I dislike the most about the expansion is how little we'll now play the rest of the B1G. Sure, it's great to get more money, but we're barely playing wisconsin or iowa or minnesota in football anymore! At least the B1G went to 9 games, but still - unless they add games or just schedule OOC games with B1G teams, we're only going to see games for the brown jug about 2-3 times per decade.

Yes, the moves make sense....for reasons that are largely irrelevant to fan interests. Sure, there may be a lot more money in it. And what is that money for? Awesomer facilities? They're already gleaming palaces. Coaching salaries? I know there's an arms race aspect to this, but there's also the aspect of paying people more to do what they already do. These schools are fighting tooth and nail to not pay the athletes more (so that's clearly not what they intend to do with it) and even I'm sick of their dumb arguments and I've been long on the side of not paying them.

I sure as hell don't see this money offsetting the scrapping of seat licenses or the cutting of ticket prices. All this money is great and Dave Brandon and the other ADs can pat each other on the back for making more money. What are they going to do with it all? They can't buy tradition with it and they don't plan on passing any of it to us. Anything at all that we fans might be interested in seeing? If not, then we do have the right to say these moves make no sense.

That's a pretty logical take and it's nice to see someone separate the "fan perspective" from the perspective of the conference and member schools. For a good hunk of the fans, especially of schools that have plenty of money to go around, they aren't going to see any positives from this. Michigan is already loaded. Adding more money (though a substantial amount) is probably not going to do much for the major sports. If anything, it's just going to mean more money to throw at the non-revenue sports.

However, I'm not sure I totally agree with the concept that more money won't help the conference. I think there are two prime examples of the other side: Michigan basketball and Nebraska basketball. Both programs had little to moderate success for basically a decade. Obviously, both did a great job of bringing in coaching talent, but the other part of it was renovating their facilities. I mean, Nebraska is in on 4* recruits right now in basketball. I mean, we're talking about Nebraska, a program that couldn't get out of its own way for years. Maybe football is immune to the concept of better facilities = better recruiting, but I truly do believe that your Iowas, Minnesotas, and Purdues stand to benefit the most from this. Even if you have one of those teams be able to improve into a good (not great) program due to this money, that would be a huge boost to the Big Ten.

At the rate tuition has increased, I would say that takes up at least part of the extra money. Plus if they just accepted what they had, it would not be long before the athletic department was in the red. Let's not forget that when Bill Martin started as AD our athletic department was losing money, so it's not far fetched. Also, these guys are well aware the compensation structure is changing for the athletes. Whether that just means bigger stipends and extended insurance, or something more, and they probably want to be in front of that financially.

"In his vision Rutgers and Maryland will soon develop into big-time football programs in large part because big-time football is now coming to them. Season-ticket sales are up 25% at each school mainly because Rutgers is now hosting Penn State and Michigan instead of Cincinnati and South Florida, while Maryland's last ACC home game was against Boston College but its first Big Ten visitor will be Ohio State."

I know that Maryland was honest that the move was financially motivated and I am sure Rutgers probably thought it might not hurt either, but it does seem like there is still going to be an initial performance dip for both programs before they get on the trend that Delany proposes. How long probably depends on the athletic departments at each school, but I dare say Maryland looks like it is much closer to being at least in decent shape with football than Rutgers.

"Funny isn't it, how naughty dentists always make that one fatal mistake."